NEW YORK, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The dollar was mixed against major currencies on Thursday amid strong demand for U.S. government debt and some negative economic reports.
The U.S. Treasury sold a total of 101 billion dollars of debt this week in three auctions, all drew strong demand. In the auction of 26 billion dollars seven year notes on Thursday, about 33 percent of the notes were bought by indirect bidders, the class of investors that includes foreign central banks.
The so-called bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was 2.26 in the auction on Thursday. The auctions helped ease concerns about rising borrowing costs and weakening demand for U.S. government debt from foreign investors.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported that new home sales in April rose 0.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000 units. The inventory of new homes at current sales rates fell to 10.1 months.
U.S. foreclosure starts, the number of homes entering the foreclosure process, jumped to a new record high of about 700k in the first quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Delinquency rates, a leading indicator of foreclose, also continued to rise.
New orders for durable goods rose by 1.9 percent in April, the Commerce Department said. This is not an encouraging report because the increase was mainly driven by a huge jump in defense orders. Orders for core nondefense capital goods fell by 1.5 percent.
The Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims fell by 13,000 to 623,000 last week. The four-week moving average of jobless claims also fell, while continuing jobless claims hit a new record high. The report showed U.S. labor market conditions remain very poor but there were hopes that the worst has passed.
The euro bought 1.3962 dollars in late New York trading compared with 1.3919 dollars it bought late Wednesday. The pound fell to 1.5953 dollars from 1.6043 dollars.
The dollar fell to 1.1137 Canadian dollars from 1.1145 Canadian dollars, and fell to 1.0834 Swiss francs from 1.0869 Swiss francs. It rose to 96.91 Japanese yen from 95.20 Japanese yen.
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